Searching again and again. Inclusion, heterogeneity and social work research

Summary Once upon a time there was a society of priests who built aCelestial City with gates secured by word combination locks.The priests were masters of the Word and, within the City, ascendinglevels of power and treasure became accessible to those whocould learn ascendingly intricate levels of Word Magic. At thevery top level, the priests became gods; and because they thenhad nothing left to seek, they engaged in games with which topass the long hours of eternity. In particular, they liked toride their strong, sure-footed steeds around and around theperimeter of heaven: now jumping word hurdles, now playing polowith concepts of the moon and the stars, now reaching up totouch that pinnacle, that Splinter of Refined Understandingcalled Superunderstanding, which was the brass ring of theirmerry-go-round (Williams, 1991, p. 1)     

Evaluation of Student Learning Outcomes in MSW Programs

Abstract

The Nation is experiencing a rural crisis of severe proportions. Initially, that crisis was tied to depressed commodity prices and the demise of family farms but current developments indicate that it is of greater scope. Farm closures have caused the exodus of citizens, businesses, banks and services from small towns, particularly in the Heartland and the agricultural South. Despair among farmers has resulted in suicide and homicide; a traditional way of life is under threat of extinction. Additionally, depressed oil and other mineral prices have changed the rhythm of many rural lives and caused displacement of workers in non-agricultural yet rural states. This paper reports the results of a national survey of social work schools and programs and assesses the response of social work education to this crisis. Programmatic innovations are inventoried; regional comparisons are offered on practitioner and program responses; factors that facilitated or hindered those responses are reviewed; and the purported anti-rural bias of social work is assessed.     

Historical Perspectives on Rural Social Work: Implications for Curriculum Development

Curriculum development must proceed from criteria that validate the inclusion or exclusion of a given content. The lack of a single focus for rural practice has heightened the difficulty of determining which content must be included in training efforts. In spite of this practice diffusion, the history of the rural field renders a number of suggestions for social work program development. This historiographic essay delineates the status of social work practice and education in rural communities from its inception in 1908 to the present day, and suggests the implications of the historical data for the development of educational programs for the rural field.     

Moving away from globalization and the “flattening” of Social Work: Preserving Context in International Efforts

Contextual awareness has been a professional trademark and has differentiated social work intervention from other professions. Context in social work has traditionally included tangible and intangible factors such as an intimate understanding of the cultural milieu, familiarity with local history, languages, traditions, and sensibilities. The current concern is that given the forces of globalization and managerialism, social work practice and education in many countries have distanced themselves from addressing context in curriculum building and have become mechanistic in program design and delivery. This paper contrasts the concepts of internationalization and globalization. The authors concur with the perspective that the movement to globalize society was the result of economic forces and unfortunately spread into culturally embedded fields such as social work. They propose that globalization in social work has changed the direction of former efforts at internationalization, which were designed primarily to develop cross-national perspectives on human experiences. After a review of current trends in globalization, the authors offer cautionary words about well-intended efforts that can easily become educational frameworks imposed from the outside, with the power of disrupting cultures.